Last Journey Begins
by Synesthete
Summary: In my mind, how the first two scenes after Bad Wolf Bay in "Journey's End" would have gone.
1. Scene 1

After realising that her new-new-new Doctor's hand, in his clear willingness to give her some space, wasn't gripping hers like she desperately needed it to, Rose tightened and secured the hold. To her, it was as if the lack of firm contact could allow him to vanish along with his other self, once again leaving her alone, with no touch apart from the bite of the frigid sea wind and the wetness of her tears.

The Doctor, moisture on his own cheeks from, among other things, the telepathic bond with his TARDIS being ripped away, was resolute in holding her gaze. Regardless of essentially exchanging one of his two belov d girls for the other and now feeling a glaring emptiness in his consciousness from the one now gone, he would never have traded the outcome; his ship may now be forever out of his reach, but he had his Rose right here.

And she had... a Doctor? But was he the man she had spent every last waking moment in this universe searching for? Ultimately she turned to stare at him, much like she had just done at the now-vacant indentation in the sand where the TARDIS had been, trying to discern without words if he actually was there, if he was who he said he was, and if he really felt about her the way he had voiced earlier. Yes, she had quickly enough accepted with his last incarnation that any Doctor was The Doctor was truly Her Doctor. He knew her and loved her and hadn't really left her. And he was him, just as his other self had said. A smile threatened to warp her previously downturned and gaping mouthline.

His ancient chocolate browns scanned over her sharpened, angular face, and though he appreciated every square millimeter of it because it was _hers_, he was nonetheless concerned for her mental and physical health during their time apart. He resolved he would make it his job in this universe to ensure she was well cared for every day he lived. "I get to live the one adventure I never thought I could have with you."

Despite so many emotions warring within her, relief and delight began to win out and ease her into that smile. "_Blimey_."

"Yep.", he agreed, forming a grin to match her own. "A mortgage, carpets, the whole works.", he smirked. He'd obviously had time to mull it all over and come to accept the concept without too much fuss.

She herself was too blown away by everything that just happened to process that statement word for word (or she would've reminded him her dad was the Vitex billionaire in this universe and therefore the mortgage bit would get to remain a joke). She blinked, then quirked an eyebrow, and at last released a decided "You're here." on an exhaled breath, still not quite capable of full sentences yet.

He nodded, only a little more solemn than he had been a moment before. "I am. Here with the one woman in existence who would and could blast through universes to get to back me. There is nowhere I would rather be."

Massaging an icy thumb across her negligibly warmer knuckles must have helped bring her back into the physical aspect of the world because it was then that Rose leaned if not staggered forward to clutch him around the waist in a desperate hug. Not a beat later, arms came over the top of hers to encircle and comfort, and his chin came to rest snugly on her shoulder, right where it had so many times in the past.

He sighed. "Rose Tyler." It was almost as his counterpart had ground out not minutes ago. Everything about the way he could enunciate her name made it sound like an answer to a dying man's prayer. Eyelids clamped shut, he turned his face more into her neck to breathe her in and get as close to her as possible in order to remind himself his Rose was very much here and very much real. "I missed you more than you can imagine."

She gripped him even tighter knowing that, compounded by the guilt and heartache he had tended to carry around with him as a matter of course, those words would well be true. Unable to comfort his other self directly, all she could do was eventually sniffle out a question into his chest. "Will he be okay?"

He sighed again in full understanding of the emotional slaughter his other self would have to endure after leaving Rose behind in this universe and very soon a mind-wiped Donna in their original universe. But at some point, while the pain from those losses would remain etched as cavernous scars into his hearts forever, he would come to terms with them and make an effort to try and move on for both their sakes. "He knows he's left himself here with you. So yes, he will be." But to be honest, this Doctor didn't wish to focus on the tragedy of it all right now; he had his prize in his arms, and he wanted to bask in all the joy he could muster up, joy that represented the beginning of the rest of his new, final life with his amazing pink-and-yellow human.

Ensconced in one another's comfort and acceptance and devotion, seconds turned into minutes. After a short while, after apparently too long, in the mind of the third, practically forgotten wheel on the beach, this quiet and intimate intermission in their lives was abruptly discontinued. "Can't get a signal from 'ere. W'll haveta walk t' town." Seeing they were taking their time pulling apart, Jackie continued with "C'mon, then. 'S bloody freezin' out here!" before making a determined march further onto land, whether they intended to follow her or not.

Jackie's back turned and her form beginning to recede, he took a moment to let the solidity of Rose sink in to his mostly-still-Time-Lord brain. He bent down, eyes asking and receiving permission, before gently claiming her lips in a chaste kiss, lingering lovingly with a nuzzle over her treasured though cold-numbed face. Pulling back, he presented her with wiggling fingers and an encouraging grin. "Another adventure awaits." Giving a squeeze to her willingly given hand, he had her mirroring his grin and agreeing to be led off, away from her past and into the future, in the direction of those most recent tracks in the sand.


	2. Scene 2

Various looks had been exchanged along the way: eye-rolls from Jackie at the two of them over her shoulder, loitering glances of amazement from Rose at the Doctor, and regards of sheer adoration from the Doctor at Rose. While her mother's steps were incresingly trudging, theirs were gaining something akin to a skip. Once they had gotten on the road, it was just over an hour of walking around the coastline before they saw any reasonable signs of civilisation in the form of a rather small village on the horizon. The assumption that Jackie had been here before notwithstanding, until a building appeared, he had really began to wonder if she knew where she was going. But conveniently, they soon happened to spot a typical quaint and white, two-storey hotel a block into town.

"Hallo.", came the greeting from the receptionist behind the little counter as they walked in, Jackie in the lead.

But it was the Doctor who merrily spoke up for the three of them. "Hello!"

"Hvordan kan jeg hjelpe deg?"

And with that, he was stopped cold. "Ooh."

"I know, right?", Rose chuckled, feeling transported back to the old days when they had encoutered and subsequently discussed a truly peculiar feature of an alien planet or lifeform. "Hit me like a ton of bricks the first time too."

He couldn't help but simper at her before pushing his hands into his pockets and returning his attention to the middle-aged, blue-eyed brunette woman. "You don't speak English, by chance?"

"I do.", she smiled through a snicker, having stayed silent during her new guests' exchange.

Flashing a toothy smile that he'd had at the ready, he rolled up on the balls of his feet and back down again as he continued his initiative and made their reservation. "Brilliant! In that case, two rooms for the night, please." He added with raised brows, nearing giddiness, "One for my fiancée and myself, and one for her mother."

"Wot?" came a dual interruption, Jackie's loud and strident and Rose's soft but no less bewildered.

The Doctor blinked once, then twice, until his happy grin flattened at the concerned, confused looks and clear lack of accord amongst the three of them. Even his wild, slightly over-long hair looked like it had drooped. Opening his mouth to speak, he could get no sounds to exit.

"Wot'you mean your fiancée?", Jackie re-squeaked.

Did Jackie disapprove, he wondered, or did she just not pick up on it beforehand and neither did Rose want her to and she didn't expect that coming, at least not so soon? At some point, a couple of words tumbled down from his windless sails. Not having taken his eyes off his supposèd betrothed, he stuttered. "You're... not?"

Her countenance was mostly unreadable to him, but it did seem to indicate she wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea.

"Oh." Time seemed to pause as his lips remained in an o-shape. His gaze plummeted downward to the green and mauve, wood-patterned rug underneath them while an awkward hand removed itself from a pocket and came up to self-consciously rub the back of his neck. His state quickly devolved to a more than mild level of fragile terror at the possibility, probability?, that she wasn't really in love with him any longer, or she had at least thought it over and decided she couldn't be in love with _this_ him, and that she didn't intend for him to be sticking around, at least like that.

Not missing anything about his abrupt change in mood, she took hold of and tugged on his other wrist, from where The Hand had been stuck in its pocket, to pull him over a few feet away from her mother and the understandably baffled but also entertained receptionist in order to have a more private moment.

She dropped said wrist, and seconds ticked by while she quizzed him with an arched brow. When he found his voice again, he had just blinked hard, and in so doing, an extra layer of wetness formed over his eyes. Now he had an intimate idea of how she'd felt back when she'd talked with him after meeting Sarah Jane. His voice wobbled, unable to keep the panic completely out of it. "We'd said... I could grow old with you. Together. Asked if you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me. When you... I assumed you... well," he pressed his lids down for another moment once more in concentration, "I mean I t..."

For the second time in mere hours, he found himself being yanked into sudden descent, this time via his shirt collar, his lips inelegantly crashing against those same, full, pliant Rose lips he would forever re-imagine in his dreams. His thought process catching up to what was going on, he caught himself just in time before he would have toppled over her, and hands at her waist, he steadied his mouth against hers until the kiss ended with a natural sweetness.

Their faces pulled apart by inches. Without conscious effort, her tongue graced across her top lip. "'M sorry. I must not a' been thinkin'. Still in shock about it all, y'know?" She outright laughed then. "Why would I 'spect a normal human proposal from you anyway, yeah?"

As if an afterthought flashed before him, his expression changed in an instant once again, and he quickly took to fumbling around in an inner jacket pocket bigger on the inside, no doubt, and fished out what he was after: a slightly wide, beveled band in a swirling mixture of gold and silver metals, otherwise plain apart from the large, striking, diamondy gem tension-mounted within. He regarded it in contemplation, then looked back up at her, a flicker of anguish shadowing his features. "I happened by a famous jewelry shop on Sestris. It was four months after you..." he trailed off, trying once again to avoid reliving that particular nightmare in his mind. "Had it set with the only Gallifreyan White Point Star I knew still existed. I told myself if...", he paused with a thick swallow, the motion causing a tear finally to spill over onto his cheek, "when I found you again... it didn't matter; I'd ask you if..."

"_Yes._", Rose cut off his intense distress, breaking into her wide, trademark smile that had, since she had met him, become reserved for him and him alone. Tears were in her own eyes by then. "Yes, I want to stay with you. Grow old with you. I want to 'ave your adventure with you." He visibly relaxed, enough so that he thought he might to turn into a pile of relieved goo right then and there. "My heart's always been yours, Doctor." The ring all but forgotten, she pulled her lips inward to help keep her from crying in the moment as well. "I told you forever, y' know, and I mean' i'."

With that kind of declaration, along with the trump of using of his name for the first time since there had been two of him on the beach, the Doctor's face had lit up like a little boy's on Christmas morning. He threw himself at her, hoisting her smaller frame up in the air, and twirled them both around before lowering her down, moving back only a matter of millimeters to catch some air, his singular but full heart in his eyes and locked on hers. "I love you more than anything, Rose Tyler, and I meant that too. I always have."

Epilogue: So Jackie rolls her eyes again, they all get the rooms the Doctor had originally had in mind (not next door to each other, he was more than grateful for), and he and Rose, hand in hand, fail in making it look like they don't run to theirs.


End file.
